Okruhy Zeme

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The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#very_good God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.

Genesis 1:31 – 2:2 After each stage of His Creator’s work the Creator rested and said: „It is good.“ When the work was completed he saw all that He had made and was very satisfied and He said: „Very good.“ Then He rested. And so together with stars, earth, sea, trees, flowers, fishes, animals, and people God also created weekend!

Not as a desired escape from an exhausting reality but more as an exhale of satisfaction – when He looked at the result of the meaningful creative work.

Reflect on the last period of your work, activities and tasks. Give them all to God. And then breathe freely...

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#it’s_raining Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? ave you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail?

What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?

Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm?

Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew?

From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens?

Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?

Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together?

Job 38:1–38 Weather is one of the things that we don’t have control over yet.

It makes us anxious and we are willing to pay a lot of attention to eliminate this uncertainty.

Weather reminds us daily that in the most important things we depend on God. But dawn, evening breeze, summer thunderstorms, midday sun, fall fogs, snowdrifts, even icicles are in the hands of their Creator. That’s good news...

Try to pay less attention to the weather forecasts and accept each day as a hearty greeting from the Creator.

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#brick_and_tar As people moved eastward, they found a plain and settled there.

They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.”

They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

But the Lord came down to see...

Genesis 11:1–9 Since the first people were driven out of the paradise we have been looking for „the place“, where we would settle down, a home where we would put down roots, achieve something big, leave our mark... But instead of stone we use poorly burnt bricks and tar instead of mortar. We aren’t an inch closer to heaven. It is God who regularly comes down to us – sometimes to scatter us and thus save us from ourselves. At other times to give us our real home and a mission that reaches to eternity – through Jesus Christ.

What are your towers of Babel?

What would it look like is Jesus changed fragile bricks of your efforts for a stone that will last until eternity?

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#turn_signals Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths.

Do not remember the sins of my youth.

According to your love remember me…

The Lord ... guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.

10 All the ways of the Lord are loving...

Psalm 25:4–10 Our journey through life isn’t a shiny broad highway but rather a search for the right direction in a maze of narrow streets. Too many intersections and no clear signs.

To turn in the right direction we need a higher wisdom. But sometimes we take a wrong turn. It costs us something but we can always come back. Repentance means turning back, change our opinion and go in the right direction. God is gracious.

Do you need to go back and start from the beginning?

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#ornate_robe Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, and he brought their father a bad report about them.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, and he made an ornate robe for him.

His brothers hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

Israel said to Joseph: “Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.”

But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.

Reuben tried to rescue him from their hands. “Don’t shed any blood.” they stripped him of his robe – the ornate robe he was wearing – and they took him and threw him into the cistern.

Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come, let’s sell him.”

So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.

Genesis 37 The story of Joseph and his brothers is full of bizarre events but try to identify with the story. Who do you most identify with? With the spoilt Joseph? With his envious brothers? With Ruben who was overcome by pity? With the pragmatic Judah? With the passing Ismaelites? Hebrew stories are not idealised myths about perfect heroes and bad enemies. These stories are about real people who face real dilemmas and moral conflicts. Sometime they make better decisions, sometime worse – just as we do.

Give your bad decisions to God. He has the power to change them and use them in His big story for something good.

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#great_morning:music I will exalt you, Lord, for you lifted me out of the depths...

I called to you for help, and you healed me. You, Lord, brought me up from the realm of the dead; you spared me from going down to the pit.

Sing the praises of the Lord, praise his holy name.

For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime... weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.

Psalm 30 Which of David’s emotions speak to you? His anguish, call for help, or how hope is growing inside of him, how a new perspective is born which turns to praise and worship? David doesn’t have a lot of reasons to be optimistic except for one thing and that is enough – his past experiences with God’s faithfulness.

What are your experiences with God? Maybe you have some past experiences and you have a lot of reasons for praise. And maybe on the contrary, you feel that God disappointed you or that He is silent. Even David had similar feelings.

And he found out that God’s mercy is above everything!

Pour out your feelings to God. And be thankful and in that way play him a great morning music...

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#shema_Israel When your son asks you, “What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the Lord our God has commanded you?”tell him: “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

Before our eyes the Lord sent signs and wonders - great and terrible - on Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land he promised on oath to our ancestors. The Lord commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the Lord our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, ...

Deuteronomy 6:20 – 25 The decision to follow God will one day or another almost certainly bring us to a desert. A that is good, because a desert is a place of the most decisive meetings with Him. In our greatest need, greatest danger, in the place of our total brokenness or loneliness God comes to us to lead us out of there and keep us alive. In such situations a determination and courage is born for us to live a life that provokes questions to which the only answer is a story of the Gospel...

What questions your life raises in people around you?

Think about your most important experience with God...

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#my_soul:lives Defend my cause and redeem me…

All your words are true; all your righteous laws are eternal…

Great peace have those who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble...

May my cry come before you, Lord; give me understanding according to your word.

I have strayed like a lost sheep.

Psalm 119:154–176 Psalm 119 is a great praise of the God’s Word. But inside the psalmist a tension is growing – the reality of the world around him and his own life are not in harmony with the flawlessness of God’s law. So, in one moment he praises God’s triumphant promises and immediately after that he calls for help and admits that he has strayed like a lost sheep. How do you feel today – do you praise God or feel like a lost sheep?

Talk to God about it. Or you can pray along with the psalmist: „May my lips overflow with praise, for you teach me your decrees.

May my tongue sing of your word, May your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen your precepts.

Let me live that I may praise you!“

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#meal When you enter the land to which I am taking you and you eat the food of the land, present a portion as an offering to the Lord. Present a loaf from the first of your ground meal.

Numbers 15:18 – 21 Jewish and later Christian holidays revolve around food. Jesus started his public activity by changing water into wine. Before his death he had a meal with his disciples. Christian spirituality is set from meal to meal. That’s why we celebrate the Eucharist and share bread and wine.

And each of our meals can become a worship – when we share it with others as an offering... Who will you invite to dine with you?

Bake a cake or pizza, invite your neighbours for coffee.

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#on_mountains Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent?

Who may live on your holy mountain? who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart; whose tongue utters no slander, who does no wrong to a neighbor... who keeps an oath even when it hurts... who lends money to the poor without interest; who does not accept a bribe against the innocent…

Psalm 15 If David had stayed in Jerusalem, the priests would have explained to him who can enter the temple – the long passages of Leviticus describe the conditions and rituals under which the high priest can once a year enter it. But David went up to the mountains and realized that things are different. God is interested in our heart and character. And building a character is like climbing up a high mountain; and it is also a quest for a lifetime. Don’t go on this hike alone.

In what do you want to be more like Christ?

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#patches_and_wineskins No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.

Mark 2:21–22 Do you ever feel like an old cloth? We are always tempted to expect that keeping religious practices and rituals will sew patches on our torn life. Jesus has a different plan – salvation and restoration of our souls, and also restoration of our physical body in the new creation. Not a ritual but the incarnated God is the source of restoration and a new life. Exactly as Jesus showed us in his resurrection.

Think what it means to live here and now in the hope of resurrection.

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#camping I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought Israel up out of Egypt to this day. I have moved from one tent site to another, from one dwelling place to another.

Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their leaders whom I commanded to shepherd my people, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’

1 Chronicles 17:1–15 This is Lord’s response to David’s idea to build Him a great house from stone and cedar. God, however, liked camping – moving from one place to another.

God then ordered them a strange holiday – a seven-day camping so that each year they will be reminded of their journey. A regular return to wilderness, to simplicity, to a deeper dependance from God, is for us, city people, an important spiritual excercise.

What does it mean for you to be a pilgrim? Maybe you will find out next time you go hiking...

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#through_the_window My beloved is knocking: “Open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my flawless one.

My head is drenched with dew, my hair with the dampness of the night.”…

My beloved thrust his hand through the latch-opening; my heart began to pound for him.

Song of Songs 5:1–8 Song of Songs is a love poetry – a celebration of love between the wise Salomon and a beautiful Sulamite – and it‘s unparalleled in ancient poetry.

People have also read it as a picture of a relationship between Messiah and His faithful people. In the Middle Ages most people couldn‘t read nor write. They saw stories of God and His people in the stained glass windows of gothic churches. Through those windows Jesus reached out to them.

Who or what does your heart pound for?

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#sun_has:risen And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

Luke 1:76–79 Zechariah prophesies about his son John (the Baptist), but at the end he pays tribute to Jesus from Nazareth – „the rising sun.“ Zechariah follows Isaiah who prophesied that „on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.“ When Jesus became a man a new day has dawned on the whole universe.

God‘s kingdom has come and is coming – the new creation is breaking into the old world and by the rays of God‘s love transforms it from the inside.

Sit in such a place where you can feel sun rays. Sit for a while in Christ‘s light.

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#back:to_school For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians13:8–13 School, education, and reading of books – all of these are important. But our knowing doesn‘t end there.

It is only a part of our way of knowledge. The apostle Paul suggests that the greatest form of knowing is love. It is love that sees through the mysteries, which we don‘t understand yet. This doesn‘t mean that our current efforts to know – however imperfect – can be ignored. Keep learning. And loving!

What is God teaching you these days?

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#5loavesofbread_2fish As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.” Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered. “Bring them here to me,” he said.

And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves.

Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people.

They all ate and were satisfied...

Matthew 14:13–21 God‘s kingdom came down to earth with Jesus and the citizens of this kingdom – Jesus‘s disciples do this: they are perceptive of people‘s evereday needs; they let Jesus to advise them; all the resources they have (however modest), they bring to Him, He gives them back to them many times multiplied and they are able to fulfill the needs of the whole community. And there is a lot of leftovers.

It doesn‘t work like that in our world – Jesus correctly said to Pilate that His kingdom is not „of“ this worlds. Because it is „for“ this world...

Make an inventory of your resources and bring them all to Jesus.

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#shalom The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.

Numbers 6:22–27 Biblical „shalom“ is a big word in the Bible and means much more than our „peace“.

Shalom is not only a ceasefire, peace from conflict or peace as in contrast to busyness or noise. Shalom means that everything is as it should be. Shalom is the original design of the Creator for the whole of creation.

As the bearers of God‘s image we are called to reflect God‘s character and His shalom to the whole creation. We, too, as fragile and flawed people, can be makers of peace.

Imagine the most difficult situation you will be facing soon. How can you be a maker of peace in it?

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#153fish Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.”11 So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153 (of them)... Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.”

John 21:1–13 After His resurrection Jesus doesn‘t organize a festive baptism in Jordan nor a worship concert in the temple. On Monday morning he joins the disciples in their work and by His presence He consecrates their work and food, which their hard work brings on the table. Christ is deeply interested in your work.

He understands your profession more that you think – because He invented it.

Talk to Jesus about your work. Any surprising ideas?

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#explosion_of_thanks So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

Colossians 2:6–7 We are like a tree. Our life and quality of fruit that we bring depends on the kind of soil and how deep are we rooted. The fruit of the tree of a man whose roots are in Christ is called thankfulness. To receive Jesus as Christ means that we have stepped out of the center of our live and made place for the Lord of the whole universe through whom we were created and in whom we live.

Then we will see that every second, every breath we take is a gift...

Think of all the blessings and good thing you have.

Write down or draw the thing you are thankful for.

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#celtic_cross Then Jesus came to them and said, „All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Matthew 28:18–20 Although the Roman emperor Constantine established Christianity as an official religion, the Roman empire disintegrated in the 5th century. Most of Europe was controlled by pagan tribes and nations from the north and east. Celtic monks from Ireland and Scotland kept their authentic faith and began to again spread Christianity in Europe. These missionaries, called by the Spirit, travelled in small groups to neighouring nations and began to teach new disciples.

The arch of witnesses of faith in Europe is built also on stones with a Celtic cross carved on them. Thanks be to God! Who is your neighbour? What would it mean to float to his shores?

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

#new_song I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.

He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Psalm 40:1–6 We don‘t have to think a lot about the psalms. We should sing them more, pray them more. David wasn‘t a prophet like Moses, he wasn‘t a scholar like Solomon. He was a composer and a poet – and a very good one. Jesus grew up on his hits – and He probably knew them all by heart. David‘s songs have lived with us for so long because they are taken from the real life – they are about suffering and joy, about disappointments and triumphs, about doubts and hope, about our misery and God‘s rescue.

Pray and sing. Silently, loud, whisper or sing brumendo...

Or turn up "FORTY" by U2...

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1

Natália Luptáková (1965) is a director of Scripture Union in Slovakia where she focuses on biblical education of children and students. Natalia is also a prominent Slovak „sketchnoter“ which means that she doodles, she creates visual storytelling and she does all kinds of picture things – you can see some of them on natalupta.tumblr.com Marek Markuš (1970) is Natália’s „little“ brother and he leads the publishing house Porta libri. Within The Navigators he works on support and development of leaders in the area of mission entrepreneurship. Besides the books he loves mountains, working with wood and Bible studying and from time to time he preaches.

Svetlana Číčelová (1962) is Natália’s „big“ sister. She works in a graphic and book design – at the moment she enjoys working on a design of a Bible poetry series by Daniel Raus. But her real passion are flower arrangements and floral objects. You can find some of them on floresbysvetla.wordpress.com

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24,1